Test Systems And Benchmarks
We recently tested the entire Athlon II lineup against the Intel competition in Game-Off: Seven Sub-$150 Processors Compared, and the new Athlon II models sport only a minor 100 MHz increase over the CPUs we tested in that article. Because of this, we’re concentrating on the new Phenom II models in today’s benchmarks.
The Phenom II X2 560 is priced identically to the Pentium G6950, and the Phenom II X4 970 retails for about the same as the Core i5-750, so we’re including all of these models in our tests. The new Phenom II X6 1075T is priced between the Intel Core i5-760 and Core i7-920. Since the Core i5-750 performs very closely to the Core i5-760, we don’t think it’s necessary to include that SKU, and we are adding the Core i7-920 to our tests.
Unfortunately, the Core i7-920 we have on hand is an engineering sample with a lower memory multiplier than the retail version. This will hurt the Core i7-920 in some memory-dependent tests. But for the most part, performance should remain comparable to the commercially available processor.
| Test Systems | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | AMD System | Intel LGA 1156 System | Intel LGA 1366 System |
| Motherboard | Asus M4A785TD-V EVO Socket AM3, AMD 785G, BIOS 0410 | Asus P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156, Intel P55, BIOS 1003 | Gigabyte X58A-UD3R LGA 1366, Intel X58, BIOS version FA |
| Processor | Phenom II X6 1075T 3.0 GHz (3.5 GHz Max Turbo)Hexa-Core, 6 MB L3 CachePhenom II X4 970 3.5 GHz, Quad-Core6 MB L3 CachePhenom II X2 560 3.3 GHz, Dual-Core6 MB L3 Cache | Intel Core i5-750 2.66 GHz (3.2 GHz Max Turbo)Quad-Core, 8 MB L3 CacheIntel Pentium G6950 2.66 GHz, Quad-Core3 MB L3 Cache | Intel Core i7-920 2.67 GHz (2.93 GHz Max Turbo)Quad-Core (8 Threads with Hyper-Threading)8 MB L3 Cache |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper TX3 | ZEROtherm Nirvana NV120 | |
| Memory | Crucial DDR3-1333 Dual-Channel 2 x 2048 MB, 669 MHz, CAS 9-9-9-24-1T | Mushkin PC3-10700H Triple-Channel 3 x 2048 MB, 540 MHz, CL 8-8-8-20-1T | |
| Graphics | MSI GeForce GTX 470 1280 MB GDDR5-3348, 607/1215 MHz GPU/Shaders, 837 MHz Mem. | ||
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black 640 GB 7200 RPM, 32 MB Cache SATA 3Gb/s |
| Benchmark Configuration | |
|---|---|
| 3D Games | |
| Crysis | Patch 1.2.1, DirectX 10, 64-bit executable, benchmark tool Ultra-High Quality, No AA, 1280x1024 |
| DiRT 2 | In-game benchmarkUltra Quality Preset, 8x AA, 1280x1024 |
| StarCraft 2 | Custom Tom's Hardware BenchmarkMedium Quality Preset, No AA, 1280x1024 |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version: 9.0.2.25 x64Audio CD ("Terminator II" SE), 53 minDefault format AAC |
| HandBrake 0.9.4 | Version 0.9.4, convert first .vob filefrom "The Last Samurai" (1 GB) to .mp4 High Profile |
| TMPGEnc 4.0 Express | Version: 4.7.3.292Import File: "Terminator 2" SE DVD (5 Minutes)Resolution: 720x576 (PAL) 16:9 |
| DivX 6.9.1 | Encoding mode: Insane QualityEnhanced multithreading enabled using SSE4Quarter-pixel search |
| XviD 1.2.2 | Display encoding status = off |
| MainConcept Reference 1.6.1 | MPEG2 to MPEG2 (H.264), MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG2) Audio: MPEG2 (44.1 KHz, 2 Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s) Mode: PAL (25 FPS) |
| Productivity | |
| Adobe Photoshop CS4 (64-bit) | Version: 11.0 x64, Filter 15.7 MB TIF ImageRadial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2010 | Version: 11.0 x64, Rendering Dragon Image at 1920x1080 (HDTV) |
| Grisoft AVG Anti-Virus 9.0 | Version: 9.0.663, Virus base: 270.14.1/2407Benchmark: Scan 334 MB Folder of ZIP/RAR compressed files |
| WinRAR 3.90 | Version x64 3.90, Dictionary = 4096 KB, Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB) |
| 7-Zip | Version 4.65: Format=Zip, Compression=Ultra, Method=Deflate, Dictionary Size=32 KB, Word Size=128, Threads=8Benchmark: THG-Workload (334 MB) |
| Synthetic Benchmarks | |
| 3DMark Vantage | Version: 1.01, GPU and CPU scores |
| PCMark Vantage | Version: 1.0.1.0 x64, System, Memories, Productivity, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2010 | Version 2010.1.16.11, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / MultiMedia, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
